We couldn’t quite figure out quite what to do with RC Cola, cause it was the third leading cola brand in America, which was sort of like being the world’s tallest midget.
Nelson Peltz

[On RC Cola] Our total revenues were not even close to the marketing spend for New York state for Coca-Cola or Pepsi. But it got us into the business, we did some creative things… We signed a 21 year contract with Wal-Mart exclusively making their Cola and so forth.
Nelson Peltz

[On getting involved in the drink Snapple] We looked at other areas and we saw opportunities in the alternative beverage category. And the alternative beverage category is very interesting in that Coke and Pepsi really didn’t want to be there. They were there very reluctantly because it wasn’t nearly as profitable as their prime business of just shipping and selling concentrate to bottlers. Either in the finished good business. And the finished goods were in glass, lots of sku’s, lots of problems and not as simple or profitable – yet very profitable with good margins, but not as profitable as the concentrate business. So we saw an opportunity…
Nelson Peltz

[On calling Bill Smithburg at Quaker Oats on a regular basis] Bill if you get tired of Snapple, we’re here to buy it…
Nelson Peltz

[On the number of times he called Bill Smithburg at Quaker Oats about buying Snapple] I got close to being a pain.
Nelson Peltz

[On Bill Smithburg at Quaker Oats calling him about Snapple] And then finally on day he called me up about two to three years after he bought it and said ‘We’re ready to sit down and talk’. We did. The asking price was $300 million, we bought it for $300 million.
Nelson Peltz

[On the plan for Snapple] We took the plan of everything that Quaker had done and we virtually turned it upside down… We brought Howard Stern back… We made friends with the distributors as opposed to alienating distributors.
Nelson Peltz

[To the Snapple distributors] We told them together how we were going to make lots of money for them as opposed to taking their rights away.
Nelson Peltz

We bought Snapple and it was losing $28 million on the EBITDA line and when we sold it, it was making $80 [million]. But sales were going up, there were new products lines, there were new demographics that we were focussing on.
Nelson Peltz

We changed packaging, we changed labeling, we did everything that needed to be done and we didn’t spend the time on consumer marketing… We’d make 10,000 cases in a flavor that we liked and then we’d ship it out… If it didn’t sell very well we would never make it again. And if it did we’d make 20 or 30,000 the next time.
Nelson Peltz

[On Snapple] It was a fast moving business… It wasn’t a business that leant itself to lots of testing.
Nelson Peltz

When we were up to $80 million we were going to take it public, and we filed to do an IPO. And then Cadbury came in and came in earlier in the year and offered us a billion three fifty and we turned it down. And come fall they got to a billion five and we said okay, and we sold it on. It was a great transaction…
Nelson Peltz

[On Snapple] It was a fun thing to be part of… Together we rebuilt a wonderful brand.
Nelson Peltz

[On what he looks for in a business that he can add value to] We try to find is a business, a good business number one, that is just not living up to it’s potential. It’s not getting it right on the income statement. We want and I think it separates us from the rest of the activists which is the genre that we’re classified in. In that we don’t want to just have a balance sheet opportunity. There are plenty of companies that have extra cash, or a division that could be sold and use that to buy back stock. That’s not what’s it’s about as far as we’re concerned. We like to work the income statement.
Nelson Peltz